GREENVILLE, N.C. – Winners of its last eight games and 17 of its last 18, the #1 University of Houston Men’s Basketball program hits the road to meet American Athletic Conference rival East Carolina at 8 p.m. (EST) Saturday, inside Williams Arena.
With a win against the Pirates, the Cougars will clinch the outright 2022-23 American Athletic Conference regular-season championship. Houston has already captured a share of the regular-season title for the program’s fourth crown in the last five years and the sixth championship overall (regular season and tournament) under Head Coach Kelvin Sampson.
The Cougars enter this weekend’s contest on the heels of an 89-59 win over Tulane inside Fertitta Center on Wednesday night. Junior forward J’Wan Roberts poured in a career-high 26 points while senior guard Marcus Sasser finished with 20 points for his fourth straight 20-point game and freshman forward Jarace Walker led all with a career-high 13 rebounds.
In 2022-23, Sasser has emerged as one of the nation’s premier players on both ends of the floor. The Dallas native leads the Cougars and ranks among The American’s Top-10 leaders in with 16.9 points per game and needs only seven more 3-pointers to set the school career record.
However, Sasser also leads the Cougars and ranks sixth in the league with 1.8 steals per contest and grabbed five rebounds with a game-high four steals in Wednesday’s win over Tulane.
Roberts leads the Cougars and The American with a 66.1 field goal percentage and has hit at least 50 percent of his shots from the field in all but three games this season. The St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, native buried 9-of-10 (90.0) tries against Tulane on Wednesday to set a Fertitta Center record in field goal percentage.
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